Ancient Logic

The problem with mirrors is when you don't like what you see, you have to wonder if it's the mirror's fault or yours. "Rust Maidens" cover 2018 Gwendolyne Kiste's debut novel "Rust Maidens" mentions mirrors directly only a handful of times, and yet I was struck by the idea of reflections as a motif in the novel. Whether opaque, chrome, or clear as day, the figures of this story lurch forward in a funhouse gauntlet of perception and twisted perspective. Phoebe Shaw returns to her Ohio hometown to confront the regrets and horrors of her childhood. Nearly thirty years prior, the young women of her neighborhood exhibited a terrible affliction. The eponymous 'Rust Maidens' are a group of five women who during the course of the summer of 1980, transform into phantoms of urban decay. Their skin puckers and peels, rusted metal bits poke out from the corners of their bodies, and nails change to jagged shards of glass. The cause for this tran...

As my final pre-Arisia post, I'd like to tackle ghosts. Metaphorically, of course, because ghosts are intangible and also don't exist.  Spectral Ripples by Morgan Crooks (2013) (picture of Chihuly sculpture) I don't believe in ghosts. Not the sort of ghosts, anyway, that float around decaying old mansions or scare impressionable media personalities. Physics, at least the way I've grown up understanding it, precludes the existence of energy that cannot be detected reliably. Put another way, physicist Brian Cox stated  that if ghosts existed the Large Hadron Collider would have almost certainly found one by now. So, when I say I'm a fan of ghost stories and tales of haunted houses, am I being hypocritical? Possibly, but I also think one can appreciate ghosts and haunted houses in a different way. Even though they might not exist in a 'peer-reviewed' and 'experimentally replicable' fashion, phantoms absolutely exist as a potent symbol of t...

I'm wary offering advice to other writers.  First of all I've got the whole imposter syndrome thing and whatever advice I give feels like a good way of revealing how little I know about anything. Second, what I've learned mostly relates to solving problems in my own writing. What advice does a dog have to offer to a duck on how to swim?  Spiral Structure by Morgan Crooks (2017) However, for Arisia 2018, I'll be participating on a panel of doing just that - giving advice to aspiring horror writers about writing horror. So, what truths can I impart? Some advice feels absolutely true, if a bit self-evident. You must read . If you're trying to write horror then you must read horror. Not just one novel. Not just one author. You should make a sincere effort to read everything by everyone. The more recent the better. The classics are always going to be there, but if you want a sense of where your stories could fit, you need to see what is being published ...

The third in my series of year-end lists is literature. As in past years, I've divided this post into two categories: Novels and short stories. Each of these stories made 2017 just a bit brighter for me and I hope this list includes at least a writer or two new to you. Novels: I Wish I was You by SP Miskowski: This was the subject of a review earlier this year. The way I feel about this novel, the tragedy of a talented person crippled by anger and regret, transformed into a monstrous avatar of wrath, has not really left me. Beyond the perfection of its prose and its preternatural subject matter, I feel like this is one of the best evocations of the mid-nineties I've seen published. There's something about this book that lingers with me long past the concerns of its plot and characters. I guess what I'm trying to say is this work moved me. 2017 would have been a lot dimmer if I hadn't read this work. New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson: Robinson writes ne...

Part of the reason American Gods works is that it offers a kind of reward to folk lore mavens and religious study majors. Do you have a working familiarity with obscure Northern European mythologies? Are you able to describe what Neil Gaiman got right and what he fudged a bit in terms of the Egyptian religion? Then the guessing games of that novel - just which Middle Eastern Goddess is this? - magnify its other charms.  Cover for Novella "Pretty Marys All in a Row" by Gwendolyn Kiste (released by Broken Eye Books ), is a novella for people, like me, who are waiting impatiently for the next season of Bryan Fuller's show. It's not set in that universe, certainly, but approaches the question of folklore from a similar perspective. Namely, that myths have a definite, physical explanation and your knowledge of such things will expand your enjoyment of the work. In the case of Pretty Marys, the stories are urban legends and nursery rhymes about young women. The ...

Alright, first full disclosure. The author of " And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe ," Gwendolyn Kiste, asked me to contribute a blurb to this collection. So let's classify this review as not entirely unbiased. I have enjoyed her stories since the first one I've read and my fandom of her work has only grown since. But I will plow ahead regardless because the simple fact is I would like you to buy this book and read it.  I say that because I figure if you're reading these words, what with all the innumerable blogs, e-zines, and pod casts to enjoy then we may share some interests. Perhaps a similar taste in the strange and macabre. Maybe a desire to read and appreciate works crafted with subtly, passion, and power. If you like to think and feel deeply about the weird quiet places of the world, then Gwendolyn Kiste's work is for you. It was written for you. You should read it. The anthology includes fourteen of her best short stories. Most of them ha...

January was a busy month for me, to put it mildly. I attended Arisia 2017 and sat on a terrific panel about short fiction. I received word of two story acceptances (one listed in a previous post and the other forthcoming). There were also all of the distractions of a world veering somewhere between the "Dead Zone" by Stephen King and a cyberpunk dystopia by William Gibson. And, of course, I read a whole bunch of awesome short stories, including a few I can recommend below. Wooden Boxes Lined With the Tongues of Doves by Claire Humphrey. (Beneath Ceaseless Skies). When considering stories that revolve around magic, I really respond to writers that can somehow conjure what that magic is and how it works within the tight confines of a short story. To me, magic should feel like magic. In other words, waving wands and intoning spells doesn't really cut it. When magic is done in fiction, the result should feel inevitable. Pull a trigger and a bullet flies. I pri...

November was a great month fiction and miserable month for just about everything else. First off, I'll mention I'm in process of getting together a "Best of 2016" list together in preparation for the "Short Sharp Shocks," panel I'll be on for next year's Arisia. I'm on the panel with some incredible writers and reviewers of short fiction but one awesome thing is that one of the panelists shares an appreciation for one of my current favorite short fiction writers, Gwendolyn Kiste (highlighted below). This promises to be a great conversation. I'm also going to make a shameless plug because: why not? "Gazer," by Karen Osborne appears in the same "Electric Spec Magazine," issue as my story " The Yuru-chara of Hector, NY ." Read her excellent story first and then give my a try in if you're in the mood for a coming-of-age story set in a world beset by virtual creatures come to life. Although not described her...

Slightly better situation this month for reading short stories. I still didn't quite to as many as I'd like to but I can recommend a few stories without hesitation.  Scent by Maria Haskins (Flash Fiction Online) Another tale of the horrific perfumes. Here, a daughter administers to a frightful mother, a kind of demon who steals away the fragrances (and presumably souls) of unlucky mortals. There is something memorable about the intertwining of imagery and odor, and also the slow, twisting tension between a mother and a daughter; the mask of pleasant perfumes over something dark and predatory. All the Mermaid Wives by Gwendolyn Kiste. (87 Bedford) a couple of Kiste's favorite motifs intertwine here. Fairy tale creatures updated for a fraught present, sisterhood, and questions of empowerment. This story broadens her work in some respects. While still retaining a directness and unpretentious grace, more and more o...

I don't really like what I say I do. When I say I am a fan of Lovecraftian mythos, weird fiction, cosmic horror, cosmic dread, or Dark SF, that doesn't mean I enjoy (for the most part) work derived directly from the Mythos. I think it's safe to say Lovecraft has inspired a great many notable weird fiction writers, and some of them have even included the odd tentacle beastie, or cameo from one of HP's unpronounceable Elder Gods. It's just not what I read this type of fiction for. Midnight Shadows by Morgan Crooks 2016 What interested me about Lovecraft is the same thing that gets me revved up about Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgens, Arthur Machen, T.E.D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, and Peter Watts - the depiction of an inexplicable universe at odds, fundamentally, with human survival. I'm not sure why this body of work appeals to me, but it does. So, this summer I did a self-directed survey course of literature in this vein, to try and fi...

Now, this was more like it. The great thing about having a month off is I could really dig into my favorite magazines and journals for the best of current speculative short fiction. That luxury has produced a list of a few stories I think worth your time. At the bottom of the post, I also have a link to the most recent chapter of "Agent Shield and Spaceman." "Ley Line" by Morgan Crooks (2016)  "Floodwaters" by Kristi DeMeester ( The Dark ). A ghost story is about the past, a ghost being the literal embodiment of something passed. This story hints and suggests, slowly filling in the gaps of a family's history until the flood waters submerge everything. The language here is simple, direct, and brutal while still preserving a dark species of poetry. One of my favorite works last month and that's saying a lot.  "Some Pebbles in The Palm" by Kenneth Schneyer ( Lightspeed ). A really excellent philosophical piece concerned with many of th...

I read only a handful of new short fiction stories last month - I'm going to blame all of the awesome anthologies I was catching up with from the past year. In any case, here a trio of short stories well worth your effort to track down. First off, finding "Great Black Wave" by David Tallerman on Nightmare was a real pleasant discovery. A very cool blend of military sci-fi and horror this is a story to read for a unique and well-described setting. A contingent of American soldiers descend upon an obscure Afghani village in search of a bomb maker. To examine a forbidden cave they employ a spider like, smart-drone. The apocalypse the drone unearths supplies the title of the story. A story like this really thrives on attention to detail, which Tallerman provides effortlessly. All the Hippies are Dying by Gwendolyn Kiste. Most of the stories I've read from Kiste are weird horror or dark fairy tales. This is a bit closer to a slipstream vignette. As usual the author use...

The next chapter for "Agent Shield and Spaceman" is available . Marcus and Spaceman interview Dr. Duchampski about the contents of the Anti-Cerebrist vials and learn about one of the most fearsome of all cryptozoological creatures - the Burmese Tiger Snake. In other news, Gwendolyn Kiste published an interview with me on her blog yesterday. I have tremendous respect for Gwendolyn's talents as a writer and fan of weird fiction and enjoyed her questions greatly. Check it out if you get a chance and while you're there read some of her work and the other interviews she's posted. Great stuff! On more of a personal note, I have finally finished the door to my chicken coop. In terms of tool-use, I rank somewhere between an Australopithecus and H. Habilis, but by repeatedly banging heavy objects into slats of wood, this crude contraption some how resulted. Plans to open my own boutique catering to aficionados of crappy post-apocalyptic carpentry are in the works. ...

Gothic folk-singer Marissa Nadler's release "July" was one of my favorite albums of 2014. Eerie, soaked in existential dread, the album still sounds like the soundtrack to a nightmare guest-directed by David Lynch. That's meant as a compliment, by the way. As a big fan of weird fiction as written by Laird Barron, John Langan, Gwendolyn Kiste, and Jeff VanderMeer, this is as close to the unsettling power of cosmic dread as I can imagine outside of electronica or ambient tracks. Broken Fence by Morgan Crooks 2014 In retrospect, "July" is also one of the most straight-forward of her works, a strange thing to say about music so subtle and understated. But yeah, I'll say it - songs like "Drive" and "Dead City Emily," had the force of quiet manifestoes, assertions of haunted misery. "Strangers" is nowhere near as bleak as her 2014 album but also not nearly as accessible. It's great stuff and recommended for lovers of ...

Being the start of May, it must be time to suggest a few stories to read from last month. As chance would have it, some of my favorite stories from the year so far appeared within the past 30 days. If you are a fan of speculative fiction, consider some of the offerings below: "All the Red Apples Have Withered to Grey" by Gwendolyn Kiste ( Shimmer ). Damn fine story. Sort of a fairy tale, taking elements from a few different sources, set in a realm that seems vaguely European medieval but could also be Pennsylvania. I know what I prefer. The idea of young women being sold off to an apple orchard keeper for the chance a prince might come to waken them from a sleep is handled exceptionally well. The pay off is ambiguous while still providing considerable pay-off for the story. This is a story that had me within the first few lines and never really let me go. This is probably my favorite work of hers since "Ten Questions." ...

This post is a little delayed this month due to a busy schedule of revisions, revisions, and more revisions. For the most part, my reading this month was taken up in reviewing the Cyclopean Issue #1. My own story, "The Mystagogue" was the lead-off story and I was curious about the other work appearing within the issue. I wish this magazine a long life because they put together a collection of work that truly gets me excited for the stories they find. After the Big One by Adam Rothstein. ( Motherboard ) My lead off recommendation is this multipart multimedia fictionalized account of the Big One - a megaquake on the Cascade subduction zone. After a 9.0+ earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, Portland, Oregon struggles to survive. This is an amazing project really - taking the stuff of summer block busters and making a story both specific, epic, and consequential. Rothstein brings considerable moral focus to bear on the aftershocks of the disaster and the lack of preparedness ...

Another month of excellent reading to recommend to you, this time leaning heavily into the sci-fi side of things. As always, don’t think of this as a full-on review post or anything. These are merely a sampling of stories I read and enjoyed. Strandbeest Tail by Morgan Crooks 2015 Baby Bird by Gwendolyn Kiste. (Tryptich Tales) Tryptich is an interesting market. They only publish three works at a time, and each echoes the other in some thematic way. Kiste’s offering is a dark fairy tale grounded by the friendship between two misfits in a southwestern town. What puts this story on the list for me is its spare and evocative prose, the way the relationship between the girls and their secret fall into place with the absolute minimum of description.  Sober Kevin is a Bitch by HL Fullerton (Tryptich). I don’t think speculative fiction has quite reached the bottom of the multiverse concept and here’s a story that finds a clever take on multiple versions of a person in communica...

September was a busy month for me. Back to school. Two collections including my stories. A great number of stories to pore through in under thirty days. I am including my favorite stories out of the Bundoran Anthology, Second Contacts, that includes my story “This Beautiful Creature.” I’ll probably do something similar next month with the Game Fiction Volume 1. I think both collections contained some killer stories and it’s my pleasure to talk up them and their authors. Okay, on to the picks for September 2015: The Oiran’s Song by Isabel Yap (Uncanny Magazine) A beautiful and terrible meditation on war and the thirst for violence and death. An oni daughter infiltrates an Imperial Japanese army unit and begins to feed upon them. Her tent mate is a boy neutered by his anguish and loss, slowly sliding into being an accomplice. The Peace of Worlds by Jaime Babb (Second contacts) So everyone knows what happened when the Martians invaded before. For all of their overwhelming f...

Neil Clarke’s post on Clarkesworld explaining why his magazine doesn’t have a short fiction review column struck me. Not having access to his web traffic logs I can’t argue with the facts he brings to bear, namely that short fiction reviews don’t drive readers to the site. I would say on a pure anecdotal level, however, that I have read many short stories on the basis of review columns and, more importantly, also discovered markets where such stories appear. These “What I Read” posts also tend to attract the most traffic on my site. That said, I agree with him on one level - this blog, which really is just a list of the stories I like - is probably not going to be moving anyone to read a particular story. I do hope that in assembling these lists every month a casual short story reader might come across a title that does seem worth interesting or a magazine that they had not heard of. Really, if the year so far has taught me anything, it’s that there is an incredible wealth of qu...